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What other people think of you is none of your business (I think Mourinho could have said that), Leadership is about having an unshakeable faith in your goals, vision and in your power to make positive things to happen together with your floorball team, these are also the things, good leaders are able to feed back to the team, to give more energy and keep a clear direction.
Just remember that hard days will always come, but never last, but strong people always do. Hard times are just opportunities to learn for the future!
Hard times build great leaders and floorball players. During the hard times and pressure, your leadership ability and skills are tested. Are you, or can you always be in control of things?

Have you heard about the Pareto 20/80 rule? 80% of your floorball results come from 20% of your activities, drills, practices etc. meaning a limited amount of activities will give you already 80% of the results!
What are your leadership cornerstones or vision? What about your floorball players key, or basic activities that will give you the 80% of results?
Find and visualize those important floorball activities, drills and practices that generates the majority of your results and get really good in doing those few things! Getting your basic box (framework) in place, it’s easier to do things outside the box. Master what’s inside the framework, that will give you the 80% of the results.

“The way I use to develop an aerobic condition is three against three, man to man, in a square 20 metres by 20.”

José Mourinho 36 football drills

If you search “Mourinho 36 drills” on Google you can find a lot of topics discussing that José Mourinho uses 36 basic practices or drills. You will probably not find them, at least I haven’t, but this might give some advice that he is working with the 20/80 rule? These are some things that you can read about Mourinhos 36 football drills.

Combined floorball drills

The 36 football drills are simple or basic if you prefer that word, the practices are mainly designed to work with techniques and skills. During the practices and the drills the players work with fitness, tactical, technical factors at the same time with a high number of ball touches. Mourinho has also included the psychological and mental factors into the drills, meaning he is also working with the psychological part in football simultaneously.

Mourinho believe in control and his coaching methods focus on what is in his direct control, his opinion is that the only factor he can not control are the supporters.

One of his priorities is keeping things simple and therefore try to remove the complexity or simplify it. Focus or concentration is an another important area for Mourinhos’ players, the message is that the opponents are not stupid and can potentially have the same methods… In terms of weakness of the opponents Mourinho will try to and practice taking advantage of the individual player weaknesses, such as height of players or weak foot.

Other aspects of his leadership and coaching include a “brutal honesty”, with strict eye to eye contact and he does not censor his word no matter who the player, that you can read in the newspapers and in this book.

Mourinho believes in hard work ethics and a balanced game system, so it’s not about attacking or defending, it’s about balance between these two factors.

According to Mourinho he values the psychological factors the team above anything else, he wants his players to play with controlled aggression and self-confidence. Mourinho’s approach to youth football is simple.
He uses small sided games with high amount of ball touches based on the Dutch system, but he works isolated with the parts of his tactical system.
His requirement before any youth player is promoted to the first team, is that they master the color box thinking, tactics and have been through the 36 football drills at least once. Otherwise the youth players will not be promoted to the first team.

José Mourinho’s leadership is charismatic, trustworthy, and respectful and he uses an attitude of invincibility, which he seems to be able to move into his players.
Many times he uses the media and newspapers to focus on him, in order to remove the attention and pressure from the team.

He also uses the media in some cases to create a negative view of the teams possibilities of success or to create an enemy outside the team before big games, in order to motivate the players.

10 000 Hours – 10 years

A number of studies have shown that it will take ten thousands of hours to become a master of what you are doing. This will apply for leadership, professional floorball players, football, work, hobbies etc. Each of us has the potential to master what we are doing, but it will require time, 10000 hours, or about ten years, you need to focus your energy, if you want to be the best in whatever you do. But too many of us don’t commit to the things we are doing well enough, but we still hope to be the best or recognized, sometimes we give up too early, wondering why we never become the best. “I was a great talent, when I was young…” Ever heard that?

Talent or a lot of practice?

Talent is a word we use to simplify the explanation of success and the difference between the best and the normal people or floorball players. We also assume that elite floorball, hockey or football is only for the people with right heritage and genes and unfortunately we were not one of those… that’s why we are leaders or waterboys ; )
What if it wasn’t like that, and it could be seen only as an opinion that hinders us from being the best? What if our success is only connected to the amount of hours we practice?

For example, many floorball and football coaches talk about that they are able to spot talents, is that true? Or are they good at spotting players that already have been practicing more than the others?

You can have gifted parents, but it’s probably more realistic that the parents have put more efforts already from the beginning in to the practicing?

Tiger Woods, a golf talent, or is it a result of practice?

Tiger Woods has been seen as the greatest talent in golf, ever. In that case you need to know that Tiger Woods got his first golf set before he was one years old. He had been through his first full golf round at the age of two years. When he was five he had already practiced more than an average golfer will practice during his or her whole “career”. The same goes for Messi, Beckham and the other football stars. David Beckham used to practice in a little park, and he practiced for hours and hours every day.

“With hard work everything is possible, everyone can dream, and what you dream of you can reach, if you are willing to work for it” /Lionel Messi

When José Mourinho arrived in Madrid he commented Christiano Ronaldo, “He works incredibly hard, it’s impressing to see a player of his caliber to practice harder than nobody else”

If you map the hours the star football players put on practicing, it would not be a surprise, why they are where they are.

“Practicing is my secret, I have always believed in, if you want to be successful you need to work for it, practice, practice and then practice more”. / David Beckham

I’m not sure how many hours of practice, I can give you by reading this blog, but at least some valuable time and leadership knowledge, I hope.

We are a team

The statement “First-teamer will not be a correct word. I need all of you. You need each other. We are a TEAM.” That statement shows how important José Mourinho sees each player in his team. To not be eaten up by the competition from other teams and unhealthy competition within the team, he is creating a culture, where everybody feels and knows that they are an important piece in the team puzzle. Each player should act like a leader regardless of the rank or position within the team, with this I’m meaning the players take responsibility for their own role, results and therefore also for the teams results, they are leaders from their position, during practices, games and outside football. Each player is part of the leadership team within the team, no role is a small role!

Maybe this is why Samuel Eto’o accepted to play in a “not central” role his last season 2010 in Internazionale and take a big defensive responsibility, instead of beeing in a central role, like he is playing now.
With this vision everyone needs to show “leadership”, take responsibility for the results, inspire teammates and therefore also act in a positive way towards their teammates, be a leader. No matter what your position is within your team within the team (defense, midfield, forward or a waterboy…), how old you are, what earlier experience you have, you have the power of showing leadership, no one can take that away from you if, you decide to do it. Make your players aware of this, this is what Mourinho is doing.

“For example, in my team I love to have Geremi on the bench because he’s a low-profile player who is ready to help, ready to fight for the team, ready to do the job I want him to do.” /José Mourinho

“Why drive Aston Martin all the time, when i have Ferrari and Porsche as well? That would just be stupid” /José Mourinho

You are a key player

Positive culture creates a positive spiral and positive spiral creates positive results. Remember every role is an important role! Think of an orchestra, one false tone from somebody and… or think of this example.

Xvxn if my computxr is old, it works vxry wxll, xxcxpt for onx tangxnt kxy. You could think it wouldn’t affxct this txxt, but somxhow it’s dxstroying it. Somxtimxs you might say to your sxlf that your xfforts arx not visiblx, you arx just onx small pixcx in thx puzzlx and no onx will rxcognizx if you don’t do your bxst, but bxlixvx mx, your xfforts will makx diffxrxncx, sincx a txam will nxxd all of it’s playxrs in order to function and pxrform wxll. So nxxt time you think your xfforts will not makx diffxrxncx, rxmxmbxr my old computxr, you arx a kxy playxr and your xfforts will makx diffxrxncx!

Magnifying glass.Most of us has once owned a magnifying glass, have you? I have. The original purpose of a magnifying glass is to visualize the details or make the details bigger. Did you use the magnifying glass for something else? I did…
I assume that you have at least once tried to create a fire with your magnifying glass, when you were young? How can this be connected to (direction) your vision, goals and focused areas?
Your vision goals and focused areas should do the exact same work as the magnifying glass, catch the energy within the frames and focus it to a point to create fire.

Are we looking at the same picture?

One of the most important things, when talking about vision, goals and focused areas is communication. How can you secure that everyone has the same target image or picture as you want or how do you know the player have understood your message or seen the picture you try to “paint” out for them?

There will be a lot of things that will make the picture to differ between your floorball players, experience, expectations, their own will, the language you are using including your body language and many other things. Therefore it’s important that you somehow get a receipt of their understanding and interpretations. If you also allow you players to comment or maybe add things to your vision, focus or goals, you will immediately get a stronger buy in from each and one of the players.

A message from the future

Why should you have a vision? The vision will give you guidance in your leadership, coaching, daily decision making, acting and communication.

When you talk about a vision, you and I might have different pictures in our heads. I will try to give you my picture. For me to start with a vision can be in whatever format, only your own fantasy can limit it. It can be everything between some bullet points on a paper to a short movie “from the future”. So the format is not that important, but how it’s perceived, it should create energy and direct it on the long term, and to be honest how exciting are some bullet points, even if they would do the work?

A vision can be a colorful multi-dimensional description of what you as the leader see in the future, you can in your own mind/head try to move couple of years into the future and describe what you see, feel, hear, regarding the team, achievements, team spirit, players, club, fans, results, behavior etc. A good way to describe what has happened in the future is to actually try to describe it as it would have happened, not in, should terms. Because as you have read earlier the pictures you create are important (sour lemon or basketball example). There is one more dimension to ad, our brains can not make difference between created realistic pictures and realistic pictures, the difference comes from our own values and belief…

I try to visualize the difference for you.

Vision 2014– We should win the league 2014
– We should improve our team-spirit
– We should increase the intensity in our practices
– We must… etc.

Or…

8th of May 2014I would like to welcome you all to this press conference. I can imagine you have a lot of questions after our victory in the League. If I just start to give you my point of view of the key success factors, after that you will be able to ask some questions to the players.

To start with, I think our victory would have not been possible without the fantastic team spirit we have in our team, everyone has a clear defined role, and all of the players have accepted this during this year/these years, we don’t use the word “first teamers”, we are one TEAM.

During this year we have increased the intensity in our practices which we also showed clearly in yesterday’s last game in the league. We were the strongest team in the end, we were willing to run the extra mile, and if you look at the amount of goals we have scored this season, it’s 89 goals and that gives you also the picture of an offensive, strong and quick team!

The setup, could be that you actually rig a press conference with the players in the press role. Do you feel the difference between these examples?

Guided discovery and all in

After creating a vision it’s important to also involve your floorball players, what do they think? Is this the correct way? Don’t just accept an yes, ask questions, why do they think it’s the right way, or why not, what did they find exciting in the vision (and not, why?), was there something that needs to be changed, added or deleted? In the end you are of course the one deciding about changes, but if you don’t listen to your players, you need to explain why you will do that, why you will continue with your “picture”, but in that case are you walking alone towards the vision or do you have your team with you on the trip? I can say that if the vision is well taught throug, prepared and tested on a smaller group before the presentation, and it’s attractive, you will only get positive feedback and explanations why it’s correct and therefore the players also feel that the vision is also theirs. Otherwise you sometimes get good input that will complement the vision, things that you haven’t thought about or didn’t feel were important, but for the team it was. Even if you make some changes, you will still have the same buy in from your team, in this case maybe even more, because they have added something and you as the leader have showed them that their opinion counts, respect!

José Mourinho

The same method applied on practices and drills.
“I use a global method, I use direct methods when preparing our organization, but I also use guided discovery where I create the practice, dictate the aim, and the players come up with different solutions” /José Mourinho

The head coach of a floorball team has one main job. He/She has to get the most out of the floorball team during the season. Everyone wants to win the floorball championship or the league title, but the reality of the situation is that only one floorball team will make it, and if that is the only goal you as the floorball coach and your team have, to grade your performance only by whether or not you have won it all, there are going to be a lot of unhappy floorball coaches and players at the end of the year.

So ask yourself. Can you make your team better than it was at the beginning of the season? Can you put up a set of different goals, measuring development in different areas, where the league title of course can be one of the goals? Can you turn your floorball players and team into a cohesive unit? Can you teach your floorball players something about the game and teamwork and improve their outlook on life at the same time? Maybe the first thing you should work on is promoting a positive attitude within your team.

One good communication guideline I can give you, is that, always remember who or what you are speaking to, or about, and pay attention to the situation that you are in. You cannot use the same logic and vocabulary with a group of eight year old floorball players that you would with a team of professional floorball players. You might be able to yell at older players during floorball drills, but you can’t do the same thing to a ten year old floorball player or with a referee during a game.

Above all, always, remember that the world does not circle around you, each floorball game and practice is just a practice, until you start to earn your living on it, then the stakes might be higher.
Every floorball player, parent, spectator, and game official has their own beliefs and sets of priorities. Very few of these people will bend to your desires just because you are a floorball coach. Be prepared to explain what you want and why, this will help you on you floorball coach journey.

Communication starts immediately in the first meeting with your team, players, new people, other floorball coaches, referees etc. the first impressions counts! Dress well, hold your head up high, look into their eyes when you are speaking, and always speak slowly and clearly. Treat everyone with the respect that you hope to earn or get back. (body language)

Listen when others speak and consider what they have to say before you respond. So you respond on the right thing. Ask questions as “receiver”, to secure that you have understood the message from the “sender”.
Make sure that you understand their point of view before continuing the conversation. When you disagree, do so respectfully, clearly state your case and avoid repeating the same points over and over.